The Oregon Department of Transportation responded to the federal call in the late 1990s to streamline the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by (1) implementing organizational and procedural changes internal to the agency, (2) funding ODOT-dedicated staff positions in state and federal resource agencies, and (3) convening regular meetings with state and federal agencies with NEPA-related regulatory responsibilities. This latter effort evolved into the CETAS (Collaborative Environmental and Transportation Agreement for Streamlining) process that includes a management and a technical team element. This document reports an assessment of the effectiveness of these efforts. Phase I of the study was designed to document the perceptions and behaviors in ODOT employees at the onset of ODOT organizational and procedural changes and to compare the responses to ones obtained from ODOT employees after some passage of time. The time period covered in this section is roughly Fall 2001 to Fall 2003. Phase II of the study was designed to assess the effectiveness of the CETAS process and documents factors that affect project timelines in Oregon state highway projects for pre-CETAS projects. The third section of this document includes an analysis of the CETAS process based on interviews conducted in the spring and summer of 2004.
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